Gates may be right when it comes to the theories, formulae and facts that one learns when being educated, and perhaps the classroom experience is not that important. However when I think back to undergrad and grad school what was most important to me was "mentoring" -- my profs taking an interest in how I was thinking about course content and helping me through that. I doubt very much that remote connections on the Internet could do that.
Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Gurstein" <[email protected]> To: "'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 12:27 PM Subject: [Futurework] From Slashdot: Bill Gates on the (non) future ofhigher education > http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/08/08/168229/Forget-University-mdash-Use-t > he-Web-For-Education-Says-Gates > > Posted by Soulskill on Sunday August 08, @01:31PM > > An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates attended the Techonomy conference > earlier this week, and had quite a bold statement to make about the future > of education. He believes the Web is where people will be learning within > a > few years, not colleges and university. During his chat, he said, 'Five > years from now on the web for free you'll be able to find the best > lectures > in the world. It will be better than any single university.'" Of course, > the > efficacy of online learning is still in question; some studies have shown > a > measurable benefit to being physically present in a classroom. Still, > online > education can clearly reach a much wider range of students. Reader nbauman > sent in a related story about MIT's OpenCourseWare, which is finding > success > in unexpected ways: "50% of visitors self-identified as independent > learners > unaffiliated with a university." The article also mentions a situation in > which a pair of Haitian natives used OCW to get the electrical engineering > knowledge they needed to build solar-powered lights that have been > deployed > in many remote towns and villages. > > Bill Gates is certainly correct either now or in the near future about the > content of education--but that doesn't matter since a/the primary function > of higher ed. is credentialling and social sorting. > > M > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
